If I had permitted my failures or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.

Society has always seemed to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

When I seemed to be irritable or sad my father would quote the learned Dr. Knight and then say 'Just go to sleep.' Like all smart aleck kids I thought the advice was silly. But as I've grown older I've realized just how smart Knight was.

It seemed romantic but also tragic - people would be winning but then lose it all or crash but fight on break bones but get back on their bikes and try to finish. Just getting to the end was seen as an achievement in itself.

The stability and peace which seemed to be so firmly established by the brilliant monarchy of Francis I vanished with the terrible outbreak of the Wars of Religion.

The point here is that physics followed the data where it seemed to lead even though some thought the model gave aid and comfort to religion.

For some years I deserted religion in favour of Marxism. The republic of goodness seemed more attainable than the Kingdom of God.

I did not want to reject religion as nonsense because life seemed to have no ultimate purpose without it and most of the good people I knew were Christians.

I was 21 in 1968 so I'm as much a child of the '60s as is possible to be. In those years the subject of religion had really almost disappeared the idea that religion was going to be a major force in the life of our societies in the West anyway would have seemed absurd in 1968.

In the beginning New York and I had kind of a love-hate relationship. It seemed so abrasive compared to Europe. But the transformation here in recent years is really something. I don't think I would have seen as much change if I'd lived in any other city in the world.